Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Developing Countries - Some Stylized Facts

Understanding and distinguishing among the various factors affecting the short- and long-run behavior of macroeconomic time series has been one of the main areas of research in quantitative macroeconomic analysis in recent years. Using a variety of econometric techniques, a substantial body of literature has documented a wide range of empirical regularities in macroeconomic fluctuations and business cycles across countries.1 The documentation of stylized facts has often been used to provide an empirical basis for the formulation of theoretical models of the business cycle, and as a way to discriminate among alternative classes of models.